Sair, Inc.

In 1999, Dr. Tobin Maginnis of the University of Mississippi began
work on a vendor-neutral Linux certification program under the
umbrella of his private company, Sair Inc. Pronounced zair,
the company name stands for Software Architecture Implementation
and Realization. Sair is offering its exams through
Sylvan Prometric testing
centers worldwide. Sair has the backing of its parent company,
Wave Technologies, and an
impressive list of
advisors.

Sair defines three Linux certification levels:

Sair Linux and GNU Certified Administrator, or
LCA. This level is intended for certification of "power users and
system administrators."

Sair Linux and GNU Certified Engineer, or
LCE

. Certified Engineers are expected to be capable of
being a "Linux System Manager."

Master Sair Linux and GNU Certified Engineer, or
MLCE

, which is intended to represent a "Senior System
Manager" with knowledge of the "inner workings" of Linux systems.

For each of these three certification levels, four exams are
required, for a total of twelve exams. At a cost of US $99 for each
exam, a candidate pursuing all twelve exams will spend nearly US $1200
on exams alone, something to consider if you're planning on paying for
your exams personally.

The Sair Linux knowledge matrix

The certification level descriptions listed above may be a little
vague, but detail on their content is described in Sair's knowledge
matrices, devices used to organize the material for all twelve
exams in the series. Three matrices will eventually exist, although
only the Level I
matrix is currently available. The four exams
making up the Level I certification are represented in four rows of
the matrix:

Installation & Configuration

System Administration

Network Connectivity

Security, Ethics, and Privacy

The columns of the matrix hold these general topic areas:

Theory of Operation

Base System

Shells and Commands

Utilities

Applications

Troubleshooting

Each cell in the matrix represents a major content area for the
corresponding certification level. For example, on the first row
(which covers the Linux Installation and Configuration exam), the
Theory of Operation column contains topics such as the history
and nature of free software, the GPL, and other general knowledge
items. It also contains basic PC hardware topics (such as interrupts
and I/O addresses) and network configuration. In the second row of
the matrix (which covers the System Administration exam) a different
view of Theory of Operation includes filesystem issues,
the Linux Loader (LILO), and others.

Exam preparation

However it is organized, the information being tested in the Sair
exams is what you'd expect for a junior level certificate. Concepts
are tested in general terms, and detail is kept to a minimum. Based on
my experience with the Installation & Configuration exam, an
experienced Linux system administrator will have little difficulty
with the Level I exams. That said, you'll still want to do some
preparation prior to your test.

As an organizational device, the knowledge matrix is okay, but it
doesn't help much when it comes to exam preparation. It does offer
some references to outside documentation if you drill down into
individual topics, but this would be a tedious way to study. To
start, you might look at the exam
objectives pages provided by Sair. This information, while not
completely specific, does provide a general understanding of what's on
the exam. However, two additional resources are available that might
be more helpful. The first is a series of sample
exams. These are short tests prepared to look much like the real
exam, and my score on the sample correctly predicted my result on
Installation & Configuration (I passed). I recommend that you
begin with the sample Installation & Configuration test to
gauge your experience and knowledge, and then determine your next
step.

If you feel that more detailed preparation materials will
improve your chances for success, you may wish to purchase Sair's own
manuals. Dr. Maginnis is authoring a separate book for each exam to
be published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Currently, the
Installation & Configuration book is available with a list
price of US $34.99, and it's discounted by some retailers. My
impression of the book is positive overall, but it has a significant
number of errors and typos. It does contain a sample exam, much more
extensive than the on-line sample, which should assist you with your
preparation. Additional books are already announced.

Perhaps the best reason to purchase prep books from Sair is their
offer of a free exam
voucher with proof of purchase, available through September 1,
2000. If you purchase the discounted book for US $28 and get the
voucher, you're saving US $71 of the US $99 exam price.

The Level I Installation & Configuration exam

The Sair exams are typical IT certification tests administered at
Sylvan
Prometric using a PC. The Installation & Configuration
exam consisted of fifty questions of these four types:

Multiple-choice single-answer (37 questions)

Multiple-choice multiple-answer (6 questions)

Freeform response (3 questions)

True or false (4 questions)

Of course, the quantities of each type of question could vary from
exam to exam. A score of 74% or higher was required to pass. Most of
the questions on my exam were basic general knowledge questions,
though an occasional command option or configuration-file syntax item
was included. In general the complexity of the material was quite
low, but still adequate and appropriate for a junior
administrator.

I do have a few problems with the exam, however. First, no option
was available to provide feedback on specific questions to Sair. I
feel that this option is important, particularly at this early stage
in exam deployment. Next, I found three questions with wording
problems and four that were, in my opinion, ambiguous. Both problems
made answering the subject questions difficult and turned the
responses into a guessing game. For example, one question on my exam
specified a well-known directory in the Linux filesystem and then
provided a number of responses describing the directory. Two of the
responses could have been considered correct. The first was literally
correct in the context of the exam, and the other was generally
correct given knowledge of the actual use of the directory in
practice. Which is correct for the exam? Questions such as this are
unfair and should probably be refined or screened from the exams.
Although most of the questions were of good quality, seven out of
fifty seems high for wording problems and could cause a borderline
examinee to fail.

Conclusion

Based on my experience with this single Sair exam, I feel that the
program will provide a credible but expensive certification
course. With big-name backing and a well-charted course, Sair is
likely to be a significant player in the Linux training and
certification industry.